On The Bleeding Edge

I updated my laptop's operating system the weekend before last, something that needed to be done and that I'd been dreading for months. The process took a while -- two hours of downloading stuff, plus another hour or so of computation -- but the process was mostly automatic, and happened while I was out riding, and the result was a surprisingly smooth transition to the new distribution.

 

(I use Ubuntu Linux on my laptop, and the way Ubuntu handles upgrades is: there is a new release of Ubuntu every six months or so, and the support for an individual release ends soon after the next release comes out -- you are supposed to stay on top of the upgrades. If you do, you can automatically keep your installed software up-to-date fairly automatically, but when the support for the version you're using ends, your only option is to upgrade to the next version.

 

Every two years there is a "Long Term Support" version, which means that it's supported for about three years, and this is a great way to keep from getting caught in a constant upgrade cycle -- OK, it means upgrading every two years rather than every 12 months, but still -- though they eventually shut down the support for even these LTS versions. That's what happened to me: I upgraded to the April 2008 release some time in 2009, when my original release was discontinued, and support for that April 08 release was finally discontinued this past May, so my software hasn't been updated for months. I remembered the previous upgrade as being fairly painful, and I needed to do a comprehensive backup of all my data before I did any kind of major overhaul, so I put off the change for as long as I could stand. There's also been some controversy in the Ubuntu community regarding changes to the interface, so I wanted to let all that work itself out before I made the change -- I'm OK with being a somewhat early adopter, but I prefer the cutting rather than the bleeding edge.)

 

Like I said, a smooth transition: none of the software I was already using disappeared, even though some of it had been discontinued from the default version of the release, and I haven't found any weird discrepancies/glitches so far, except for a problem with the fingerprint recognition software. Right now I'm going through the system, looking for new or upgraded goodies, and checking the software repositories for fun new stuff to download.

 

The one thing I've discovered -- rather, been forced to face and acknowledge -- is that I really need a good backup solution. Right now my "backups" are a bunch of files scattered across several memory sticks, SD cards and free cloud storage sites, I have (or had, at the time of the backup/upgrade) no real backup software, and while I was at Staples paying $80 for a 32GB micro-SD card, I saw that I can get a terabyte drive for less than $200. So now I have less than $200 burning a hole in my pocket...

 

Some other things: we missed the Great White Caps / Start Making Sense show on New Year's Eve, but Anne and I saw our first indoor concert at Steel Stacks this past Friday, when we saw Chris Smither with Ellis Paul in the Musikfest Cafe. An awesome show, in what amounted to a nightclub or dinner theater atmosphere.

 

Saturday was brutally cold, so of course I went for a ride... It was the VMB pre-party ride at Sals for the annual holiday party, which we have a week or two after the regular holiday stuff calms down. A really fun ride, though I was a hurting puppy right from the start; there were about 15 people in all, and when we split into fast and slow groups I was the slow guy on the slow ride... I think it's going to be a tough spring. The party was pretty cool too, as Spanky's parties tend to be: garage converted into a "disco," a (very welcome) fire in the fire pit, plenty of good company.

 

Sunday was also cold, but this time it was an indoor day as Anne baked and I played with the computer.